Source: Trump claims coronavirus was made in this lab. Here are the facts

Questions surrounding the origins of the novel coronavirus have sparked a war of words between Washington and Beijing -- and threatens to worsen already strained relations.

In recent days, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have doubled down on the assertion that the virus originated from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detected last December.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oROH0DE0wUI

The claim has unsurprisingly drawn a fierce rebuttal from the Chinese government, which on Wednesday described the accusation as "smear" intended to bolster Trump's reelection chances.

But intelligence shared among the Five Eyes network -- an alliance between the United States and four Anglophone allies, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada -- also reportedly appears to contradict the Trump administration's assertion. Here is what we know -- and what we don't know -- about the claims and the laboratory at the center of the controversy.

How did China respond?
On Wednesday, China's foreign ministry called the accusations a political strategy to "smear China" for Republicans ahead of the 2020 election.

"The recently exposed US Republican strategies show they are encouraged to attack China under the pretext of the virus," said foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, adding that China was "fed up with such tricks."

"We urge the US to stop spreading disinformation or misleading the international community. It should deal with its own problems and deal with the pandemic at home," she said.
Hua also highlighted the fact that Pompeo did not provide any concrete evidence to substantiate the claim.

"Mr. Pompeo cannot present any evidence because he has not got any, this matter should be handled by scientists and not politicians out of their domestic political needs," she said.

China's government-controlled media has also pushed back at the claims, accusing the US of shifting blame and hurling a barrage of personal attacks at Pompeo. State broadcaster CCTV called him "evil" and "insane," while state news agency Xinhua called him a "liar." The Global Times, a nationalist tabloid backed by the ruling Communist Party, said the top US diplomat "has lost his moral compass."

Beijing has repeatedly stressed that there is so far no conclusion on the origins of the coronavirus, saying the matter should be left to scientists and medical experts to study. It has bristled at calls for an independent international inquiry into the origins of the virus and China's initial management of the outbreak, painting them as political maneuvers aimed at smearing the country.

The Chinese government has faced criticism at home and abroad over its handling of the virus, especially in the early days of the outbreak. It was accused of silencing whistle-blowers and delaying in informing the public about the severity of the crisis. But it has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, brushing aside accusations of a deliberate coverup in the critical early stages.

Chinese officials and state media also pushed unfounded claims alleging the virus did not originate in China. In March, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, promoted a conspiracy theory on Twitter that the virus had originated in the US and was brought to China by the US military.

Meanwhile, tracing origins of Covid-19 has become a sensitive subject for domestic academic research in China. Last month, the Chinese government-imposed restrictions on the publication of such papers, requiring them to receive extra scrutiny and approval from central government officials before being submitted for publication.


What do scientists say?
Scientists have so far largely rejected theories that the novel coronavirus is man-made. On February, 27 public health experts wrote a letter in the Lancet medical journal to condemn such conspiracy theories, citing scientific evidence that "overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife."

In an interview with National Geographic that published on Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US top infectious disease expert, said that current evidence points away from the man-made theory.

"(The scientific evidence) is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," Fauci told the magazine.
"Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that (this virus) evolved in nature and then jumped species."
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OK next! Has Trump become a household name.

Monday60655:
OK next! Has Trump become a household name.

He is a proactive President, unlike others that are redundant and ineffective

This could be true

mybbcnews:

He is a proactive President, unlike others that are redundant and ineffective

Exactly

Hmmm

This is how it started in Vietnam, Iraq, Lybia, Venezuela, North Korea and now China.
They will tell you that you are a threat to world peace and needs to be eliminated before they will eliminate humanity and then gather the world's sympathy to invade that country and make it a shadow of itself.
Anyway, na season film them they act make we dey watch as im dey roll for 3D.

the beginning of a new Iraq War.

mybbcnews:

He is a proactive President, unlike others that are redundant and ineffective

How is accusing and provoking another country a proactive president. Which sane president does that

OBTMOS:
This could be true

Yes,

TOPCRUISE:

How is accusing and provoking another country a proactive president. Which sane president does that

Trump is simply saying the truth, is just that people don’t like to hear the truth

mybbcnews:

Trump is simply saying the truth, is just that people don’t like to hear the truth

Which truth. People like to hear the truth if there is evidence. If the US accuse a nation of anything the whole world will believe without conducting investigation. Countries like iraq are having instability because of false accusations. For every truth there is evidence. Where is the evidence. It's a bad thing to accuse someone without facts. Every thing that Trump says are without facts and he always hold on to the belief that whatever American government always says is always correct because of their status in league of nation's.

TOPCRUISE:

Which truth. People like to hear the truth if there is evidence. If the US accuse a nation of anything the whole world will believe without conducting investigation. Countries like iraq are having instability because of false accusations. For every truth there is evidence. Where is the evidence. It's a bad thing to accuse someone without facts. Every thing that Trump says are without facts and he always hold on to the belief that whatever American government always says is always correct because of their status in league of nation's.

There is no smoke without fire underneath